Missing climber found dead in Summit County after reported missing
The body of a 29-year-old man reported missing after he went climbing over the weekend has been found by a rescue group and the Summit County Sheriff’s Office.
The man, whose name wasn’t released, was found dead Sunday morning at the base of a cliff in Officers Gulch, between Frisco and Copper Mountain.
The Summit County Rescue Group said in a statement that a friend of the man contacted authorities Saturday night and said his friend had not returned from his climb. The man told his friend that he was going to be climbing and later called to say he was headed back and expected to return by 6:30 p.m.
When the friend didn’t hear from the man, he drove to Officers Gulch and found the man’s car parked there. The friend called 911 to report the man missing.
Eight members of the rescue group began looking for the man at about 11:30 p.m. Saturday. The group searched along a bike path and a climbing trail until 2 a.m. Sunday.
The rescue group resumed the search at 6 a.m. Sunday. The Summit County Sheriff’s Office used a drone to help look for the man. The man’s body was found at 7:50 a.m.
A special unit of the sheriff’s office investigated the accident. A technical team from the rescue group then set up a rigging system to take the man’s body through a boulder field and back to the parking lot.
The rescue group said the climber’s family was able to supply a last known location from a shared phone location app and a video the man made. Members said both greatly helped the search.
The rescue group and sheriff’s office extended their condolences to the man’s loved ones, adding that the man and his family did several things right.
“By letting his friend know an expected return time, the subject ensured that a search began quickly and that searchers knew an approximate area to search in. And by sending a video to his family and having a shared phone location app, he allowed searchers to pinpoint his location quickly once,” the rescue group said.
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